Pops (Re-)Read a Book: HEY KIDS, COMICS!

 There was a period in my life when comic books weren't that important (two, if you count birth to age 5)... in the mid-90s, I had just moved to Hoboken and started working for Warner Bros. Records, I was newly-single and ready to mingle, and, frankly, mainstream comics sucked at the time.

That waning of my geekiness didn't last too long, and over the years, the medium that defined me more than any other has returned to prominence as a source of comfort, diversion, and inspiration. But it's the comics I grew up with, not modern iterations that hit the spot.

Rob Kelly's HEY KIDS, COMICS! (a re-read) is an anthology of essays about the impact of comic books, mostly from the age when they were plucked off of drug store spinner ranks. It's an often bittersweet collection that anyone who's ever dismissed comic books and superheroes should be forced to read. Maybe they'd stop being judgmental pseudo-intellectuals and understand the transformative and cathartic power of a cheap, disposable periodical full of ridiculous stories populated by impossible characters (particularly to people for whom real life had its share of challenges).

To millions of people.... this stuff matters.

Originally posted on social media, Aug. 29, 2021